The rabid anti-Europeanism displayed in the recent House of Commons debate on EU funding was a further clarification of a simple political truth. The real choice facing Scotland in 2014 is, “Which union do you wish to be in?”
Scotland can either be independent within the European Union or part of the United Kingdom outside the European Union. In joining the pro-UKIP wing of the Tory Party in the vote, Ed Milliband was, with short term shrewdness, tapping in to a bottomless well of English atavism that I have no doubt, from living there and simple observation of those around me, is leading England inexorably out of the European Union.
UKIP support rises, the Tory xenophobes bray, New Labour joins them because as always it scents the way to money and power. The English have already kept the UK out of Schengen and the Euro, the two most important developments in the history of the EU and both of which it would be great to be in. (On my advice a company here in Ghana is now buying tens of millions of pounds of manufactured equipment from Sweden, switching source from the UK, because the weak Euro gives much better value for money). The UK is already out of some of the most important aspects of the EU, snad the rest will follow.
When did any major English political figure dare to suggest in public that the EU is a good thing? That, incidentally, is a genuine question. Any answers? Neither English politicians nor media care to hide their gloating at the Eurozone’s economic difficulties, and the London media still makes daily predictions of the end of the Euro, despite having been wrong on the subject 1,000 days in a row.
Most amusing is when pundits who don’t actually support the EU themselves leap with glee when they can find a Spaniard wishing to be disobliging about an independent Scotland’s EU status. Said Spaniard is suddenly the ultimate authority on EU law, even though the same pundits deride Spain in every other circumstance.
It won’t be on the ballot paper. But the real question for the Scots is “Which union do you wish to be in?”
Mary,
Reliable information confirms Siemans were paid $millions for confidential SCADA codes and more necessary to construct the Stuxnet worm that targeted Iran’s high speed centrifuges that separate the radioactive uranium isotope necessary for nuclear fission.
The programming logic for the worm was written by American NSA software engineers from raw information supplied by the Idaho National Laboratory, Microsoft and detailed execution codes from Siemans. The finished malware was tested at the Dimona nuclear establishment by Israeli nuclear control technicians, placed on a USB stick and secreted into Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant computer network by enticement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/world/middleeast/16stuxnet.html?pagewanted=1
‘If the Spaniard you refer to is Viviane Reding, then you should note that her comments were concerning the position of Catalonia in the event of UDI, that is a separation not negotiated with Madrid. Scotland is pursuing a separation negotiated with London: different thing, presumably different rules.’
Presumably my arse! Whether an existing EU state splits as a result of negotiation between the respective parties, or as a result of a Kosovo style UDI is neither here nor there as far as the Eurocrats are concerned. They will do all in their power to prevent the Scottish precedent (if it comes about)from being followed by either Catalonia or Flanders. The most effective way of acheiving this would be by not granting successor state status to the new entity.Scotland, Catalonia & Flanders, as independent states, will therefore likely find themselves rubbing shoulders with Turkey in the EU waiting room.
tories want out of EU so that we can continue to torture abuse and of course so that the human rights laws can be dropped.
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blair clearly stated that uk was to be americas newest acquisition .. and if you follow our laws, (and EU for that matter) homeland security and foreign policy we are moving in step with the usa just as we are in our movement from welfare state towards privatisation and authoritarian state.
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our americanisation is real deliberate policy. all that is left to happen is false flag or that iran war that israel is promising.
Get rid of the all pervasive Freemasons,old bloodlines and vested interests in Scotland and it might stand a chance.
Mind you,you could say the same of the UK generally.
Until then we’re all prisoners to the craft cabal.
I’m Scottish btw – well insofar as i was told i was by birth,i didn’t seem to have much of a say in matters.Same everywhere i guess..
‘the Euro…which it would be great to be in’
The Greek, Spanish and Portuguese governments all agree that it is so ‘great’ to be in the Euro that they regard unemployment rates of more than 20% as acceptable prices to pay.
Interestingly,the SNP do not propose to join the Euro if Scotland becomes independent.
“When did any major English political figure dare to suggest in public that the EU is a good thing? ”
The author conveniently forgets the huge proportion of Scottish nationals that have dominated UK party politics over the last 15 years, some of whom have actually led the country (into a total mess).
Scots are just as capable of corrupt, inept government as anyone else. In fact, seeing as the majority are from the ‘funny handshake brigade’ I would expect the problem to be much worse in a future independent Scotland.
There is an easy way for the Scots to break free from the Homo counties, someone simply has to waterboard lezi Bouden to reveal the forces that got her to place the high bar on the Savile Newsnight episode. Once Ted Heaths fellow copros and necros (with the dead giveaway jinn stuck in their voice boxes), and their maxwell fellow devils, are out in the open, it shouldnt take much for a resounding YES vote in the referendum.
Something I never see discussed is the constitutional role of the Monarch in an independent Scotland, will they still have an English head of state (quasi-independence)?
The euro could have been a good idea if it had been restricted to the few countries which were able to comply with the requirements and conditions orginally agreed and later flouted: Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and very few others. The other members – Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and I fear even France – are in breach of the conditions and their continued membership puts the currency in danger. Eventually I believe Greece, Portugal and Spain will have to leave the euro, as there is no way they can pay their debts. Of course Merkel is desperate that this should not happen: she does not want the southern countries to compete with Germany with an export-led recovery.
As it turns out, the whole Euro project was so badly run that the UK did well to stay out.
“The most effective way of acheiving this would be by not granting successor state status to the new entity.Scotland”
You see, it’s supposed to be a threat, and reduce us all to fear and trembling. Wot? We won’t be in the good old EU anymore? Gosh, how awful! But I am one of many who would be delighted with this outcome. Suggest you try a different threat. Why do I keep getting reminded of Brer Rabbit and the briar patch?
“I don’t care what you do with me, Brer Fox, says he, “Just so you don’t fling me in that briar patch. Roast me, Brer Fox,” says he, “But don’t fling me in that briar patch.”
“It’s so much trouble to kindle a fire,” says Brer Fox, says he, “that I expect I’d better hang you,” says he.
“Hang me just as high as you please, Brer Fox, says Brer Rabbit, “but for the Lord’s sake, don’t fling me in that briar patch,” says he.
“I don’t have any string, ” says Brer Fox, “Now I expect I had better drown you, ” says he.
“Drown me just as deep as you please, Brer Fox,” says Brer Rabbit, “But please do not fling me in that briar patch, ” says he.
“There’s no water near here,” says Brer Fox, says he, “And now I reckon I’d better skin you.”
“Skin me Brer Fox,” says he. “Snatch out my eyeballs, tear out my ears by the roots,” says he, “But please, Brer Fox, don’t fling me in that briar patch, ” says he.
Of course, Brer Fox wanted to get Brer Rabbit as bad as he could, so he caught him by the behind legs and slung him right in the middle of the briar patch. There was a considerable flutter when Brer Rabbit struck the bushes, and Brer Fox hung around to see what was going to happen.
By and by he heard someone call his name and āway up on the hill he saw Brer Rabbit sitting cross-legged on a chinquapin log combing the tar pitch out of his hair with a chip. Then Brer Fox knew he had been tricked.
Brer Rabbit hollered out, “Born and bred in the briar patch. I was born and bred in the briar patch!” And with that he skipped out just as lively as a cricket in the embers of a fire.
I have nothing whatsoever against Scottish independence, but will it bring an end to all the incumbents in Downing Street with Scottich names? The list of PM’s with Scottish backgrounds or Scottish names is incredible. Cameron, Brown, Blair, Douglas-Home, and Macmillan are four out of a just a dozen PM’s since WW11. To put it into perspective Scotland’s population is around five and a quarter million, whereas the estimated population of England is fifty million.
There’ll be a lot of unemployed prime ministers about come Independence Day.
‘Wot? We wonāt be in the good old EU anymore? Gosh, how awful! But I am one of many who would be delighted with this outcome.’
Glad to hear it Vronsky. An independent Scotland would almost certainly be denied full membership of the EU at the outset as a ‘successor state’, but throwing it out of the EEA at the same time would be more difficult. As an independent state within the EEA Scotland should be able to cut a deal similar to that enjoyed by Norway. Such an arrangement would allow the Scots to regain control of their own fisheries- much to the benefit of Salmond’s own heartland in the North-East of the country. Why the hell he wants full membership of the EU (& now NATO as well)is mystifying.
Nevermind 1 Nov, 2012 – 11:32 pm
“Siemens is as much a crooked multinational…you can do it for at least ten other companies which are not German”
Ten? Try just about every one of them. Big business does not give a fig about national pride (except to manipulate you). They will avoid tax, pay low wages, arm, pollute etc wherever there is profit.
To care if your politicians are in Edinburgh, Brussels, London or Berlin is to misunderstand who owns us.
@Brian Hemming – Bwahahahahhaha, Cameron is as much Scottish as was the Lithuanian jew FC Malcom Rifkind MP for Edinburgh Pentlands 1974-1997 !! You deserve lifelong free meals at the Sum Dum Goy chinese takeaway !
Siemens:
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/si/institutional-holdings
Some familiar faceless megacos there. Not German, either.
@Komodo
me: “They havenāt even said whoād theyād give Scottish citizenship to The biggest non-Scottish group in Scotland is probably the English ā people born in England, who may have lived in Scotland for decades. Are they going to get citizenship or not?”
you: “As an Englishman who lived in Scotland for 30 or so years, I was always given to understand even by nationalist hardliners that I could be a citizen if I chose to remain after independence. This would come as a relief to the English rat-race refugees who have sent property prices through the roof in the idyllic areas in which they have chosen to live.”
Yes, I’ve been told the same verbally by SNP hacks. They will say whatever you want to hear, to get you to vote for them. That’s because they’re politicians. There are hundreds of thousands of English people in Scotland.
The fact is, the SNP have never had the policy you refer to.
They have never had any policy whatsoever on who will be given citizenship. Bit of a lacuna, I reckon.
Like most Scottish nationalists, whether they are in the SNP or not, they hate people who come from England planning to live in Scotland temporarily. Why? Well part of it is that they get Scottish nationality rammed down their throats on the TV, in advertising, etc. Everything’s ‘Scottish’ this or that, in Scotland. The other part of it is envy.
I’ve never met a Scottish nationalist who doesn’t agree with imposing a version of Norman Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’.
For those who don’t remember, this was a test proposed by a former Tory cabinet minister which immigrants to the UK would have to pass in order to be allowed to stay here. The idea was that they should be culturally assimilated to the point of cheering on the English cricket team when it plays Pakistan.
Of course Tebbit was forgetting that England is not the same as the UK, and that few people play cricket in parts of the UK that aren’t England.
Anyway, all the Scottish nationalists I have ever spoken to about the matter, who fall over themselves to show they’re not racist, say that immigrants are welcome in Scotland so long as they become ‘new Scots’. They also support whatever sport team is playing against England, even if otherwise they don’t give a damn about sport.
A friend of mine who was a Scot of Pakistani origin in Glasgow once told me that he was glad that Pakistan had beaten England at some sport or other because “then everyone’s happy”. (Incidentally, he ran a small shop and was talking about the views of his customers; he himself couldn’t give a damn about sport or nationalism, any more than I could.)
“Though dual-nationality might not be so freely available, obviously. Theyāll have to choose.”
There’s no ‘obviously’ about it. Please think it out some more.
1) If a Scottish government decides to grant Scottish citizenship to English residents in Scotland only on condition that they renounce their UK citizenship, some are going to want to return to England right away. These will include those who envisage returning to England at some point in their futures (just as many Scots in England envisage returning to Scotland), but who do not want to be reclassified as ‘foreigners’ for several years in the country where they are living. Who’s going to do their jobs?
‘The hell with them’, some Scottish nationalists would say, ‘At least we might be able to buy their houses cheap’.
2) Think about all the Scottish people in Scotland who envisage living and working in England at some point in their lives. They’d be right pissed off with such a policy too, wouldn’t they, if they were treated as foreign immigrants every time they went to England, having to fill in special forms to be able to be treated by the NHS, having to make sure their car insurance covered them for going abroad, having to undergo security checks at Coldstream as if it were Dover?
I think you will find that most Scottish people in Scotland would want to keep UK citizenship, just as most people in Northern Ireland do (whether Protestant, Catholic, or neither).
Can you think of a single advantage to a Scottish person from Scotland in being counted as a foreign national every time they went to England?
This is why the SNP doesn’t raise the issue of citizenship – it would lose them lots of votes.
3) What is going to happen to Scots living in England? If a Scottish government refused citizenshp to any UK citizen in Scotland who didn’t renounce UK citizenship (and as I’ve said, this will include a lot of Scottish people as well as English, Welsh, and Irish people), can you tell me one reason why the English government shouldn’t retaliate, by themselves forcing Scottish residents in the UK to choose between the two citizenships?
Who wants this crap? I certainly don’t!
(Also be aware that at the moment, renunciation of UK citizenship is usually reversible, without telling the authorities of any other state.)
I dearly hope Scotland does not go independent, because it will worsen things for most people living in Scotland and England. Scotland would be likely to be cut adrift by bankers and ratings agencies before England (tell me one economist who isn’t a Scottish nationalist who says otherwise), and apart from that, both countries could easily be envisaged to get permanent Tory governments (in Scotland under the SNP, a near-equivalent of the English Tory party). In the event that it does go independent, most Scottish people will soon rue the day.
Just to make a point more clearly: what is going to happen to ‘Scots abroad’? And why shouldn’t a Scottish government insist that they renounce citizenship where they’re living as a condition of getting Scottish citizenship, just as Scots living in Scotland would have to? Call that the ‘WEST SURREY QUESTION’.
You say a ban on dual citizenship is ‘obvious’, but the ramifications of it don’t seem to be that ‘obvious’ to you!
This is why, Komodo my friend, you and everyone else with a personal interest in the Scottish referendum should ask the question very clearly: what is the proposal on citizenship?
If you don’t get an answer, or the answer is ‘let’s discuss that after independence’, then vote against independence.
Actually I think a large proportion of the Scottish population will completely agree with me, unless their minds are full of TV characters dressed up like the Norman French lord Robert the Bruce or the Welsh lord William Wallace when polling day approaches! š
http://www.highlandclearances.co.uk/clearances/postclearances_whoownsscotland.htm
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PS The Blair Charitable Trust is nothing to do with Bliar as far as I know.
http://www.charitiesdirect.com/charities/blair-charitable-trust-xx15268.html
@ Komodo “an independent Scotland should retain the pound“.
Please realise that would not be a choice for the Scottish government alone.
When the SNP implies it would be, I have to wonder how stupid they take Scottish people to be.
@Frazer
“N..nice argument, yet you are perhaps David Cameron in disguise ??”
Can’t you argue your case without making such silly jibes?
“I assure you that when we get independance, we will not demand that every English person living in Scotland dress in our national dress and perform a rite of passage by drinking a single malt at every pub on Roe Street to prove thier right to continue living in Scotland.”
When you say “we”, you mean rich businessmen like yourself?
“Billy Connoly has never said that the Scottish are whipping up ante English feeling, I know this as I know his wife quite well and they have never said anything to me !”
He said Scottish nationalists are, not ‘the Scottish’. For goodness sake, try to read what I say before you scoff at it.
Just because you didn’t know something, doesn’t make it untrue.
Two minutes checking on the internet would have allowed you to confirm what I said: click here before apologising.
“Anyone, whatever nationality, race or creed are welcome to live in Scotland, we as Scots do not judge a person by thier origin, in fact the EDL tried to open a branch in Edinburgh a few years ago and were laghued out of court”
Don’t be silly. Of course some Scots are racists, just as some English people are, etc. etc. And of course the SNP aren’t proposing an open borders policy. Your knee’s jerking, mate.
As for the EDL, well you’re wrong on the details, but yes they did get humiliated in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, the BNP has many branches in Scotland, as do various Scottish-themed racist groups. (A Scots Gaelic-speaking friend was once violently hassled by Scottish racists who thought from the language he was speaking that he was Irish. They hated the Irish! Shows how much the idiots knew about ‘Scottish history’!!!)
@Donald “Frazer, not worth arguing with the superficially informed. Or those who know fuck all and donāt wish to learn.”
Ha ha! You could learn a lot from my post. If you wish to teach me anything or show me anything I got wrong, or only got superficially, I am all ears. The floor is yours.
That list does not include the Trump holding at Menie.
Look at Trump, a Trump Jnr and George Sorial on the video plus Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump. So many Trumps. They see no irony in what they have done to the beautiful unspoilt landscape and the living dunes. Perhaps we could ask the creator to send a Superstorm Sandy in to the shores at Menie and the dunes will reform.
http://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&PageId=278788&ssid=153035&vnf=1
“What we believe in” – one of the sons. What do they believe in? A. The dollar and downing the rest. What chutzpah over sacrilege. These people pollute everything. Brazen about the likely ‘covenants’.
Actually, N_, there’s a lot of controversy about the dual citizenship issue. More than I’d thought, in fact, as the post-devolution picture has changed. But I’m sure it will be resolved as amicably as, say, British citizenship (in which dual nationality is relatively rare, but not a problem) is. I don’t think, for instance, that English-owned land will be expropriated, and half the English herded into a ghetto surrounding Cumbernauld (the Israeli model). Being born in Scotland or having registered one’s Scottish citizenship prior to going abroad will take care of most of the Scots-abroad issue, I guess.
But speculation is pointless. The vote is for independence or not: the rest is for the Scots to sort out as democratically as possible, given a “yes” vote. The terms and conditions come later, and will need to involve another referendum or electoral test. They will obviously depend on the degree to which the various political actors can be made to agree after, and in the light of a “yes” vote.
I’m seeing a lot of scaremongering here. You’re perfectly happy with legislative independence under the Crown for the Isle of Man or Jersey. Or indeed the Falklands. Get a grip.
And another thing – if an English person living in Scotland opposes Scottish independence, how many Scottish pro-independence people think
a) “that bloke’s only taking that view because he’s English”,
and how many think
b) “that bloke disagrees with us about what’s best for most people in Scotland”?
95% of pro-independence Scottish people think it’s a), i.e. they are racist about it, and their racism befuddles their minds.
Quite a lot of anti-independence people (such as most of my Scottish neighbours, for instance) have got the sense to know it’s far more likely to be b).
@Komodo
“Actually, N_, thereās a lot of controversy about the dual citizenship issue. More than Iād thought, in fact, as the post-devolution picture has changed. But Iām sure it will be resolved as amicably as, say, British citizenship (in which dual nationality is relatively rare, but not a problem) is.”
You are not dealing with the specifics I raised, including the position of the millions of Scottish people living in England, and the hundreds of thousands of English people living in Scotland.
If something called Scottish citizenship does come into existence, then I believe that most UK citizens who are Scottish, or who are living in Scotland, will want to keep their UK citizenship as well as have Scottish citizenship.
(Out of those posting here who believe they would be offered Scottish citizenship, is anyone willing to say they’d give up their UK citizenship? And would they renounce their UK citizenship by choice, or would they only do so if relinquishing UK citizenship was a requirement for getting Scottish citizenship? Are they sure they wouldn’t try to keep UK citizenship on the quiet?)
“I donāt think, for instance, that English-owned land will be expropriated, and half the English herded into a ghetto surrounding Cumbernauld (the Israeli model). Being born in Scotland or having registered oneās Scottish citizenship prior to going abroad will take care of most of the Scots-abroad issue, I guess.
But speculation is pointless. The vote is for independence or not: the rest is for the Scots to sort out as democratically as possible, given a āyesā vote.”
Speculation is not pointless for those who, if there’s NOT independence, WON’T be reclassified as foreigners in the country where they live, but who, if there IS independence, MAY be reclassified in that way!
“The terms and conditions come later, and will need to involve another referendum or electoral test.”
Then you are voting for or against a word.
“Iām seeing a lot of scaremongering here. Youāre perfectly happy with legislative independence under the Crown for the Isle of Man or Jersey. Or indeed the Falklands. Get a grip.”
I don’t have any personal connections with those places, as I do with Scotland, and in any case, none of those three places is independent.
Do you realise now how it is important to know what is meant by ‘independence’??
Independence indeed! Its a complete circus for the brainwashed masses. The internationalists have already decided the outcomes that they planned many many years ago, which is nothing less than total global control of all land people and resources. Salmond is just the vehicle that they use to justify it to the indoctrinated. Gradualism will take us to a totalitarian hell eventually, unless the people waken the f up!
I am a UK citizen living in Scotland. I want to remain a UK citizen. If it comes about that I will need to have Scottish citizenship in order to be something other than a ‘foreigner’ in the country I live in (Scotland), then I want to be guaranteed that I will get that citizenship as well as my UK citizenship.
The ‘independence’ side cannot guarantee what I want. The anti-‘independence’ side can, and therefore they get my vote.
And by the way, I happen to be Scottish. If anyone tells me that because I hold the above views I am less of a Scot than they are, they can eff off.
VRONSKY
What happened at Newsnetscotland. Must have been some comment.
You are not dealing with the specifics….(continues at length in order to bog discussion down in sub-clauses)
Yes I am. Comprehensively. I’m saying that hostile speculation as to the (potential) technicalities is gratuitous scaremongering. No doubt a lot of research has gone into the issues on all sides already, but only if the Scots agree to independence will any of it become remotely relevant. There will then be a long and tortuous process to establish the parameters of independence. And I imagine (having no crystal ball and being unable to see the outcome of that process) that there will then be an election. Which may permit voters to veto or approve the final move to actual independence, on the basis of the candidates’ stated policy on the matter.
I am much more sympathetic to Malcolm P’s point, but if the K is no longer U, what is the point of insisting on UK citizenship? Have you a sentimental attachment to Wales and NI? Sorry to be rude – caught it off N_.
@N
Actually I am not a rich businessman, but am a rather poor humanitarian aid worker, currently in south sudan !